Leading sales organizations are always evolving their sales processes. Yet the past two years has brought an exceptional level of disruption for revenue generating teams. Not just in the form of shutdowns and reduced real-world interaction during the global pandemic, but war and geopolitical conflict, inflation, looming economic downturns. We are living and working through one dynamic era, and nothing is “business as usual.” Sales teams have had to quickly adapt to the shifting world of work. Here is a collection of helpful tips and recommendations garnered from conversations with senior executives and leading research.
Culture Is More Important Than Ever
Before they talk tools, technology, or metrics, the one thing sales leaders worldwide are talking about on our GDS Group virtual roundtable events, is company culture. With one statistic from Forbes putting the average sales representative’s tenure at 18 months, sales leaders are wise to put their focus here.
At a roundtable sponsored by Sendoso, a company specializing in customer engagement and corporate gifting, panelists described how drastically remote and hybrid working has changed the culture of their sales teams. A sales director from one global IT firm shared that motivating his teams is harder than ever. Amidst ongoing attrition, his leaders are experimenting with traditional levers like compensation and incentive structures, but also now adding wellness perks like online meditation and yoga sessions, which have been well received.
Executives on the panel are also emphasizing more social connections amongst teams, things like dinners, team outings. Harvard Business Review says this is something high performing teams have in common: a focused effort to connect outside of work. It leads to authentic relationship, which generates better teamwork. Something that has specifically been missing in the remote and hybrid sales world.
One global sales head on the panel has even added a new role at his organization, specifically tasked with enhancing company culture and engagement.
The Right Tools, Enhanced
Once culture is properly prioritized, sales leaders are talking about the technology and tools that will enhance productivity and better enable their sales reps.
Despite the digital acceleration happening in sales, many organizations are still leveraging siloed systems. This is leading to gaps in data and friction for sellers, not to mention inconsistencies in the customer experience.
At a GDS virtual roundtable event sponsored by Groove, a sales productivity platform, executives talked about the validity of this rather alarming statistic: two-thirds of a seller’s time is spent on NOT selling. According to Groove’s data, the modern seller is so held back by manual tasks, just a third of their time is spent on revenue-generating activity.
A tech leader on the roundtable added that turnover, notoriously high in sales roles, only heightens the problem of scattered data and manual processes, with the organization losing so much data when a salesperson leaves, it hurts continuity of process with customers.
Delegates on this panel, from multinational IT and software companies, noted that too often, customer relationship management (CRM) technology just isn’t working like it should, or could, to empower the sales associate. The customer journey is often scattered in bits and pieces across different tools, leaving the associate without an end-to-end view. CRM enhancement is a big project for many sales leaders as enterprises look to adapt to managing large and distributed revenue teams.
Automation is another area onto which sales leaders are pinning their hopes. Looking to capture customer data more holistically, then get insightful, predictive action items more readily out to sales teams.
No matter how much the business world has changed, or how different the selling process looks today, the sales tools an organization selects still need to allow sales associates to continue to be problem-solvers, bringing value to the customer at just the right time.
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